History

"At the end of the journey, all men think that their youth
was Arcadia..."

Conception

Sadly, I don't know much about the details of how exactly the
Anime Society was founded, but from what I understand, it
started in the early 90s (1993 I think) with a couple of guys
and their friends who had a VCR and a few anime fansubs who
got together regularly to watch them. At first, it was just a
casual gathering in someone's house, but eventually they
decided to make an actual MUN club out of it and the St.
John's Anime Film Society was born.

It started out small, with only a handful of members. At that
time, anime was not something many people had heard of. There
certainly wasn't much anime to speak of on TV. There were a
few shows here and there, but nothing very mainstream, and what
there was had been hacked to pieces and stitched back together
by the translators (though I suppose that still goes on today
for any anime airing on daytime TV). In any case, there was
not a huge anime fanbase in St. John's, and the membership list
for the society was of a humble size. I have no idea who the
executive were at the time, but some notable members who
contributed significantly to the society were:

Richard Murdey

Colin Peters

Kurt Williams

Will Suvak

Erin McKee

Jason Strong

Dave Deitrich

Donald Simmons

Royce Foo

Bruce Duffy

Karen Duffy

Kai Wong

Early Years

The society soon started having regular bi-weekly showings in
one of the
MUN lecture halls (usually ED-1020) which would consist of a
short feature or a couple of episodes of a series, followed by
a short break, followed by a longer feature. The longer
feature would almost always be a full-length movie of some
kind, and when the first feature was episodes, it was usually
two or three episodes, and would often be consistently from
the same series, showing the entire thing (or whatever the
society had collected of it) over the course of the semester.

At that time, five dollars got you a lifetime
membership. Membership was not required in order to attend
showings, but it entitled you to borrow tapes from the
society's VHS fansub library (though back then it was
quite small; it fit in a single box and couldn't have been
more than 30-40 tapes total). A member could borrow up to two
tapes and they would be due back by the next showing, at which
time they could borrow two different tapes (except the last
showing for the semester of course).

After a while, some of the old members and founders moved away
and the executive for several years consisted of:

Will Suvak (President)

Erin McKee (Vice President)

In those days, the internet was a relatively new thing and
was only starting to become widely available to the populace at
large. However, there was a significant worldwide network of
anime fans on the internet, and they would use it to exchange
information and fansubs. This was really the only way to get
access to a wide array of anime, since so little of it made it
to North American TV (and what did make it to TV was often
badly dubbed and severely censored and/or butchered), and there
was not really much in the way of commercial anime releases at
video stores (and what was there was often just as badly
dubbed and butchered as the stuff on TV). In any case,
borrowing tapes through the anime society was the easiest,
cheapest, and most efficient way at the time to access anime.
Even if you were one of the people lucky enough to have an
internet connection, fansub distribution was still done through
snail-mail and thus it would be much faster and better for
everyone to simply borrow fansubs from the society in exchange
for a contribution that will help expand the society's
collection for everyone. Plus you would get to see a few animes
on the big projector screen and maybe be exposed to some new
shows you haven't heard of yet or never thought to watch
yourself and become interested in them.

The Boom

In September of 1995, Sailor Moon began airing on YTV's
"The Zone". This fact, combined with the internet's growing
accessibility to the public, caused a significant increase in
the general public's awareness of the existence of anime,
though for a while the society remained relatively unknown
since most of the new generation of fans were kids.

However, one fateful winter's day in 1996, the St. John's
Anime Film Society decided to have an event where they would
show a Japanese subtitled version of the Sailor Moon R movie.
They advertised extensively, not only around MUN, but also in
the local high schools. They had booked out SN-2109 for this
showing, a very large lecture room, with far more seating
capacity than the rooms in the Education Building, and the
place was packed. Suddenly, a very large number of very young
fanatics knew of the existence of the society and the wonders
of anime that was free from the butchering of the North
American dubbers.

Almost overnight, society membership exploded and SN-2109
became the regular room for showings, since the extra seating
capacity was needed to accommodate everyone. However, it
wasn't long before Will Suvak was the only remaining
executive, and even he was scheduled to leave for England after
the next semester. With no one specifically to pass the torch
to, Will called for a meeting of anyone who was interested in
running the society. Only four people showed up to the
meeting, who ultimately became the new executive, basically by
default:

Ron Keating (President)

Robert Warren (Vice President)

Jen Webster (Secretary)

Gillian Webster (Treasurer)

Will showed us the ropes as best he could in the limited
time he had left in St. John's and took off for England.
However, the new executive were all quite young (16-18), none
of us were as yet even MUN students, and were suddenly in
charge of running a very large anime society that was attended
by a large number of rowdy kids which had to be kept from
causing major disturbances or damaging the property. It was
quite a daunting and intimidating task but we learned and
adjusted as best we could.

Since the society was so large and we were quickly running out
of things to show, we decided we needed to increase the pace at
which we were obtaining fansubs. Thus, we implemented
a semesterly membership system, where for three dollars you
got a membership for one semester with the same tape borrowing
privleges as before.

The Purge

After about a year or so, enough was enough. The society was
so large and so full of kids that it was at the point where it
was hard to hear
what was going on during the showings due to people's
chatter, and the moment the show was over, sometimes even
before, there would be a huge crowd trampling over each other
to get to the front of the room to try to be the first to get
access to the tape library. Needless to say, it was difficult
for the university students (who the club is supposedly mainly
for in the first place) to enjoy their experience at the
society showings.

Something had to be done. We decided that we had to eliminate
as many of the rowdy kids as possible while keeping as many of
the civilized members as possible. Our solution was to decide
on our showings in such a way as to specifically not cater to
the kids. We would stop showing anything remotely popular and
show only obscure, artsy, slow-paced, philosophical anime, the
idea being that the kids would eventually get bored and fed up
and leave, while the true otaku would have the patience to
stay.

We executed the plan, and for an entire year, Robert picked
all the animes for all the showings. For the most part, it
worked. After that time, all the troublemakers were gone and
although we lost a few others as well, we did manage to keep a
solid core group of civilized anime fans. We then went back to
showing a more diverse lineup of shows and soon membership
began to renew itself, but rather than being mostly immature
kids it was mostly (relatively) mature young adults, and the
society began to prosper once more. We once again changed our
regular room, but this time to EN-2006. It was smaller, but
the seats were much more comfortable, and it didn't have
SN-2109's front potlights that were impossible to turn off.

We also decided that, in order to improve the quality of the
experience of the showings, we would separate the tape
borrowing from the showing. Rather than loaning out tapes at
the end of the showing or during the break, we booked a
separate room (C-2026) on a separate day (Saturday afternoons)
where we would hold "society meetings" where people could
borrow out tapes, offer suggestions for what they wanted to see
shown, or talk about society issues in general. That way,
people who just wanted tapes and didn't care about the showings
wouldn't have to sit impatiently through the features,
potentially disrupting others, and the people who didn't care
about borrowing tapes and just wanted to enjoy the showings
could do so in peace (and of course people who wanted both
could show up to both).

It was during this time that we discovered an interesting
principle about the quality of the showings. It seemed that the
showings were found more enjoyable when there was a sense of
completion to what was being shown. For example, if the two
features were both simply the first few episodes of a couple
of different anime TV series, then at the end of the showing,
it would end in the middle, nothing is resolved, and you feel
sort of empty. However, if the features (particularly the
second feature) was a movie, or a complete (but short) OAV
series, then everything would be wrapped up at the end and
you'd leave the showing with a much better sense of completion
and satisfaction with the whole experience.

In light of this discovery, we decided it might be a fun
experiment to show an entire TV series over midterm break.
There was a relatively new Vampire Princess Miyu series out,
and we figured that since Miyu was our mascot, yet not many
people were that familiar with the character, and the series
was short enough to show over the span of a few evenings, we
decided it would be a perfect candidate for our test run.
While we didn't get anywhere near as large a turnout as the
regular showings, it was still a hit, and
the tradition of the "Midterm Fest" was born.

This period also saw the introduction of some other things
that became continued traditions which are still carried on
today. One of the more notable ones is the semesterly "Trivia
Contest" where a good quality anime poster depicting artwork
from all the anime that had been shown that semester would be
awarded to a few people who were able to correctly answer the
gruelling trivia questions based on those animes. There were
also a few traditions that fell by the wayside, such as showing
a Slayers OAV or movie once per semester (understandable since
we eventually ran out) and the semesterly Lupin/Conan night,
where we would show a Lupin III movie and a Detective Conan
movie in the same night. Lupin is supposedly the greatest
thief and Conan is the greatest detective so they made a
fantastic counterpoint to each other and they were both very
well-liked shows by the members at the time.

The Transition

Time marched on and the executive slowly rotated. Some new
ideas and traditions were established, most notably the
"Spring Festival" where at the end of the winter semester each
year, the society has a party of sorts where only one short
feature is shown and the rest of the evening contains Japanese
themed snacks, anime karaoke, cosplay, and general socializing.

During this period, the society began to advertize itself a
little more. The website that had been highly neglected since
1997 and basically abandoned after 2001 was
archived and a
new one
was established that was regularly updated with information on
the details of the showings and events. As well, the society
began participating in the clubs and societies fairs which it
had also neglected to do in the past.

As time went by, however, despite the increased advertizing,
there were less new members joining up than old ones leaving,
and the membership slowly started to dwindle away. It was no
one's fault; it was simply a result of the transition from the way
anime was watched and distributed then compared to how it is now. With
the technology for digital video ever increasing, it has become
trivial for people to simply watch anime on their computers in the
comfort of their own homes. They
can pretty much watch any show or movie they want, whenever
they want. Thus, what motivation would there be to attend the
society? Why wait two weeks to watch a couple of features that
I might not even be interested in, on a Friday night, and
borrow two VHS tapes (which a lot of people no longer have the
equipment to even play) from the society's tape library (which,
while quite large, still cannot hold a candle to the internet),
when I could instead watch whatever I want whenever I want on
my computer?

It was during this period that the society began to reinvent and
reorient itself around the new environment it found itself in. It
began focusing less on the actual showings and more on the social
interaction, and the showings became more an opportunity to interact
with other fans around a commonly held interest.

Executives during this period include the following (if I missed
anyone, please let me know):

Ashley Haley

Erin Hart

Matthew Follett

Brian Summers ("Zippo")

Mae Dalton

Michael Power

Genevieve Warren

Chris Whalen

Rowena McGowan

Aaron Curtis

Dave Gilbert

Nora McGreuer

Nick Colbourne

Jordan Lester

Recent History

The society's membership may not be anything close to what it
used to be during its heyday, but it has continued to survive, and
membership has even experienced a significant increase recently.
The current exec is dedicated and passionate and has even
begun holding showings every week rather than every second week.

The current executive as of this writing is:

Jessica Hillier

Trevor Tremblett

Adam Saunders

Emma Cole

Ali

I look forward to seeing what the future has in
store for the anime society and for the anime community in
general both here in St. John's and worldwide. May it be
filled with many exciting and enriching experiences.

This document was put together from what I can remember,
either from having experienced it myself, or from having been
told a very long time ago by Will Suvak. If you have anything
you'd like to add or correct, particularly if you are one of
the founding members or were there for the days before, say,
1995 please leave a message on the St. John's Anime Film Society
facebook page.